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Barclays has denied a report by The Wall Street Journal that Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of the British bank, has lost as much as half a billion dollars on a series of trades on copper, nickel and aluminum.

Aurelie Leonard, a spokeswoman for the bank on London, said in an email statement to Bloomberg that "the reports of big losses are nonsense...there has been no abnormal trading in the commodities business."

The Wall Street Journal article quoted sources at the London Metal's Exchange who are familiar the bank's positions saying the losses could reach $500 million.

The initial report and Barclays denial come as banks are under continued scrutiny by regulators and investors for risk-reliant business models. Earlier this week, the UK announced it would require banks to split their investment and commercial banking operations in order to more effectively protect customers and the UK taxpayer from risk at financial institutions.

The losses, according to the unamed sources, came from a series of relative value trades in cooper, nickel and aluminum, with directional views taken on seperate front-month futures contracts in each metal.